


The End

by spacestationwedding



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Spoilers, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, F/M, M/M, Spoilers, Unrequited Love, bucky deserves better
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-05
Updated: 2019-05-05
Packaged: 2020-02-25 23:28:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,458
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18711865
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spacestationwedding/pseuds/spacestationwedding
Summary: After Thanos has been defeated and everyone is saved, Bucky struggles to feel like he's come home. It's made even worse after Steve goes on one last mission.SPOILERS





	The End

**Author's Note:**

> This isn't a fix it. In fact, this is probably worse than the ending of Endgame. Major heartbreak ahead!
> 
> Are you guys as upset about the neglect Bucky's received as a character by the Russo's? Because I'm pissed. So I'm coping by writing it even worse? Idk.

Bucky found Steve after the funeral. They walked together to Steve’s car, silent. It had been a week for Bucky, but five years for Steve- a long time since they’d talked. After the battle, there just was too much going on. At least that’s the excuse Bucky gave Steve in his head.

“Where have you been staying?” Steve asked gruffly.

Bucky nodded in the direction of Sam, who was sitting on the porch bench. “He’s lending me his couch.”

Steve nodded in satisfaction, like all he cared about was making sure Bucky had a roof over his head.

Don’t get it twisted; Bucky knew that things had changed. Steve must have changed a lot, after losing Nat and Tony. After losing Bucky again for five years…he thought that would be difficult for him.

But their reunion had been rather lackluster, in Bucky's opinion.

“Steve.” He spoke softly, still wrapped up in his own head. “Can we talk?”

Steve frowned, but nodded all the same. They went got into the car, insulated and isolated from the pain that lie outside and all around the cabin.

There was a pointed silence. Bucky knew he was supposed to say something, but he hoped. He really wished Steve would have something, _anything_ , to say to him. God, he’d even take a, “Good to see you again, Buck,” in that low voice he reserved for their reunions. But he felt like an imposition, like Steve had better things to do than reassure Bucky's feelings.

“What is it?” Steve eventually gave in and broke the silence.

But the thing was, Bucky didn’t know what it was. If he said he wanted more from Steve- but he couldn’t, because he didn’t want to seem entitled. There was a whole world out there that needed Steve’s time more than Bucky, he wasn’t deluded. But at the end of the day, Bucky was supposed to be Steve’s best friend. What was he supposed to think?

“You’ve been avoiding me?” It came out as a question. The last thing he wanted to do is come off as accusatory and shatter the remnants of their relationship.

Steve looked down at his lap. “I have.”

Bucky felt his face grow hot. “Why?”

There was more silence. Steve struggles quietly with an answer. “I...There’s something I gotta do. Before I come back and try to live a normal life. And I don’t want to put that on anyone else.”

Bucky exhaled with relief. Of course, it was nothing to do with him. Just Steve being his reliable old self, not wanting to burden him.

“Stevie,” he sighed and leaned over the center console. Steve was resolutely not looking at him. “It’s okay. I don’t mind if we can’t go back to normal yet. I certainly don’t expect it, after all, we went through.”

Steve didn’t show any indication of hearing him, besides chewing a little harder on the inside of his cheek. So, Bucky took a chance.

He pulled his right hand up to meet Steve’s cheek. It was the first contact they’d had since Wakanda, and damn if Steve’s skin on his didn’t feel like everything he’d been waiting for.

“I’ve waited for a long time to get back to you. I can wait a little longer.”

“Buck.” Steve nearly interrupted. “The infinity stones have to be returned to their timelines. I’ve gotta go back and set everything right. I might- I might not come back.”

Oh. There was still a mission to complete. Was Steve so uncertain about his survival that he couldn’t even face Bucky?

“Hey, if there’s anyone for the job, it’s you. You’ll come back, Steve. I know you will.”

Steve hand came up to meet Bucky's, pulled it into a tiny kiss on the inside of Bucky's wrist. The softest, only one they’d shared since 1945. It was all Steve could bear, apparently, until the mission was completed.

“I- yeah. I just don’t want to disappoint you.”

“You won’t.” Even when Bucky was disappointed by Steve, it was always because he was misinterpreting his actions. He was confident in this. “You’ll come home and we’ll have the life we were always meant to have together, right?”

Steve closed his eyes and nodded. “I- you know what you mean to me.”

Yeah, Bucky knew. He didn’t think that had changed.

“I love you, too.” He murmured, then pulled away and stepped out of the car.

They went over to the time machine. Banner had corrected him, -“It’s not actually a time machine, like the kind you’re thinking of-“ but even after he explained all of the details, it still sounded like a time machine to Bucky.

Steve set down a metal case, presumably with the stones inside. He and Bucky shared a typical goodbye, one he remembered sharing many decades ago. How their roles had reversed.

“I’m gonna miss you.” He admitted in lieu of the words he wanted to say.

Steve hugged him. It was warm and solid, but didn’t make him feel as lifted as their last embrace.

Sam followed them toward the machine, asking all kinds of questions.

“For us, it’ll be five seconds. For him, as long as he needs.”

Five seconds. Five seconds, and Bucky and Steve could begin again.

He had waited eighty years, he could wait for five more seconds.

With a blue-hot zap, Steve and the case disappeared.

“Five...four...three...two...one.”

A few flicks of the switch, but no Steve.

Bucky's throat closed in concealed panic. Sam frantically asked Banner what was wrong, who looked just as bewildered.

Had Steve died out there? He had heard about the dangerous missions they had gone on to get those stones. What if Steve had encountered something just as awful trying to return them?

Maybe the machine malfunctioned- he could just imagine Steve going back to 2014, or the seventies, maybe even the forties and trying to get back but something was broken-

But then an even more sinking thought hit him.

1945\. He was dead by then, but who had been there to get Steve through it?

He couldn't believe that Steve would do something like this. He wouldn’t leave Bucky alone in the new century after he missed even more time. He wouldn’t stay in a different time, not when he owed Bucky a chance to be together. Steve wouldn’t betray his promises just to stay with Peggy in the past. He’d moved on, she’d moved on. Steve wouldn’t.

He wouldn’t.

Bucky turned away, unable to watch the others try to bring their friend back. Hot tears pooled in his eyelids and fogged up his vision as he realized what Steve must have meant by what he said.

_“I might not come back.”_

God, that hurt. The tears finally spilled down his face, and he could clearly see the figure sitting on the bench overlooking the lake.

Son of a bitch.

“Sam.” He called out. It must be- but he couldn’t go talk to him first. He couldn’t face Steve after he’d betrayed him with tears running down his face.

Sam walked up tentatively. Bucky stayed back, just within his enhanced earshot.

Steve- old, frail, wizened Steve- handed over the shield. That was good, because Sam deserved it. He knew Sam would have probably expected Bucky to receive it should Steve ever retire- but Bucky wanted a break from fighting. He was tired, and wanted to figure himself out, and he had just wanted to be with Steve again.

Bucky never got what he deserved though. One step forward, two steps back.

They talked. Sam mentioned a wedding band on Steve's hand that Bucky couldn’t see. Steve refused to tell Sam about the girl he’d married. It was then that he couldn’t stand to listen anymore. He turned heel and walked back to Steve’s car.

Once there, once he was protected by the tinted windows and soundproofing, he let it out. Slowly at first, just tears that burned his eyes and cheeks. But eventually, he put the heels of his hands against his eyelids and let out a broken sob. One turned into many, and then he was gasping for breath and heaving painful sobs.

Steve had said they’d be together. In _some_ capacity- Bucky hadn’t misinterpreted that. But he’d chosen Peggy. God, he’d had the chance to be with Peggy instead of Bucky and taken it. It wasn’t even an impulse decision. He’d been thinking about not coming back ever since he’d decided to go on the mission. And now, he wouldn't be able to ever be with Steve.

Bucky curled in on himself, finally and truly broken.

It wasn’t the end of the line, but Steve had gotten onto a different train entirely.

  
  



End file.
